Paul Ryan

The Washington Post reports that, on the whole, wealthy Republican donors are unwilling so far to commit to a candidate for president. According to reporters Matea Gold and Tom Hamburger, the donor class is “wary of fueling the kind of costly and politically damaging battle that dominated the 2012 primaries.” More to the point, it’s unclear at this early juncture which potential candidate it makes the most sense to support. »

Erica Payne is one sick chick who perfectly represents the unloveliness of the contemporary left. Following up on her very personal message to me soliciting criminal abuse of Paul Ryan’s new book at bookstores near me (would that include Garrison Keillor’s, Erica?), she now writes: Hi Scott, Paul Ryan is the front-runner in Iowa, Christie is slipping, Perry may be out, and the consensus among Republican consultants is that Ryan »

A new Granite State poll of likely New Hampshire Republican primary voters is out. The poll was conducted for WMUR by the University of New Hampshire. The results can’t be taken too seriously because only 1 percent of those surveyed say they have definitely decided how they will vote. But the results are interesting, nonetheless. Rand Paul is the leader at 15 percent. He is followed by “favorite daughter” Kelly »

George Will shows that Paul Ryan was right to contend that a “tailspin of culture, in our inner cities” plays a huge role in the persistence of poverty. Will finds the liberal outrage at Ryan’s unexceptionable remarks to be the product of “malice, ignorance, and intellectual sloth.” I find them to be the product of ideological necessity. Ryan’s analysis is inconsistent with both the left’s narrative and its prescriptions. Therefore »

In this post, I matched up some of our most prominent politicians, including Presidents Clinton, Bush, and Obama, with a person you might have encountered in your college dorm. For example, Obama was the guy you could usually defeat in a late night argument, but only the most intelligent of your friends realized you had beaten him. Here are a few more: Chris Christie is the guy you never stuck »

I wrote here about the Democratic Party’s disgraceful attempt to smear Paul Ryan and Bill Bennett as part of their ongoing fundraising effort. Last week, Ryan appeared on Bennett’s Morning In America radio show and, among other topics, he and Bennett discussed urban poverty. This is what Ryan said, as transcribed by me: Bennett — Fatherless problem is a big one. Ryan — Absolutely — that’s the tailspin or spiral »

Politico reports that Marco Rubio is “seeking to rehabilitate his image with much of the GOP base” by falling back on “staunch conservative positions” such as a “more aggressive U.S. response to Russia in the Ukraine crisis.” I hope that denouncing passivity in response to aggression by our adversaries remains a staunch conservative position. Rubio explained that “many of my supporters maybe disagreed with me on immigration — and disagreed »

Politico reports on the House Republican leadership’s approach to immigration reform for this year. As set forth by Paul Ryan, it will consist of four pieces of legislation to be voted on separately. The first bill would provide amnesty but not path to citizenship for illegal immigrants. The second would provide a path to citizenship for illegals who came as teenagers or younger. The third would require the tracking of »

For what it’s worth, and that may not be much, Chris Christie is in a statistical dead heat with Hillary Clinton in a poll by CNN/ORC International. The poll puts Christie at 48 percent and Clinton at 46 percent. Christie wins nearly six in ten votes among independents, and wins a majority of suburbanites and older voters. Clinton wins decisively among women. Unfortunately, Christie is the only Republican among those »

As John and others have pointed out, the Murray-Ryan budget compromise cuts spending by reducing cost of living increases in military pensions. The reduction even applies to disabled veterans. Naturally, there has been a backlash against these cuts. So naturally, Patty Murray (but apparently not Paul Ryan) is trying to distance herself from them. Murray’s people are blaming Ryan. But these cuts could not have seen the light of day »

Marc Thiessen disputes the conventional wisdom that Republicans should accept the Murray-Ryan budget compromise because if they don’t, they will be blamed for an ensuing government shutdown. He notes that unlike with the October shutdown over Obamacare, this time it would be the Democrats who are trying to force a change to established law. I made the same point last week: Republicans received most of the blame for the recent »

In an interview on MSNBC, Paul Ryan blasted Marco Rubio for opposing the Murray-Ryan budget deal before reading it. Ryan’s criticism is largely specious. Where, as here, a legislator deals in secret and then hopes to ram the product through Congress before opposition has a chance to jell, the natural response by potential opponents is to gather as much information as possible about the bargain before it is sprung. If »

The office of Rep. Paul Ryan has denied the report by NRO’s Jonathan Strong that the budget deal Ryan negotiated with Sen. Patty Murray limits the ability of Republican Senators to block tax increases. I linked to Strong’s report last night and criticized the deal on that basis. You can read here about Ryan’s pushback and the pushback to that pushback from Strong’s sources. To me it seems clear that »

In 2011, Rep. Paul Ryan put forth a bold plan to reform Medicare. His plan had no chance of passing the Democrat-controlled Senate, much less being signed into law by President Obama. But, as one of Ryan’s aides told me, the Congressman felt that the current entitlement system is a time bomb waiting to explode and bring down America. Thus, he perceived a duty to propose legislation that would fix »

Politico reports that after the Senate passed its immigration bill late last month, President Obama asked House Speaker John Boehner and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, during separate telephone calls, what he could do to help the House pass a bill. The easy answer is: stay out of the process and enforce, rather than nullify, statutory provisions that are on the books. Theoretically, Obama might be able to facilitate passage of »

I just watched Paul Ryan on Sean Hannity’s program (the replay) and there seems to be even less difference than I had supposed between Ryan’s approach to illegal immigration and that of Marco Rubio. Like Rubio, Ryan rejects the idea, pressed on him several times by Hannity, that we should fix the border first before making any adjustments to the status of illegal immigrants. As I understand what he told »

Paul Ryan tells a Washington audience assembled by the National Association of Manufacturers that “earned legalization is an issue I think the House can and will deal with.” In other words, as CNBC’s John Harwood tweeted, “Paul Ryan tells me House will pass immigration ‘path to citizenship.’ Despite flak on right, ‘House can/will deal with earned legalization.’” Earlier this year, when comments by Ryan caused me to suggest that amnesty »